You people are so quick to bash on this company for no reason.

The only headset that I consider on par with this one is the recently released (at 800 euro) bang and Olufsen n95. The price is not always the sum of parts.

Also no one uses closed back headphones for studio work. What does “mid range studio quality” even mean.

The vast majority of professionals use speakers in a sound treated room for mixing. Those that use headphones do so very carefully, using EQ to get them to sound right (or getting used to the sound profile of the headphones). The most commonly used are Sennheiser open backs in this area - a pair of HD650 is probably most common. In general it’s fairly challenging to mix with headphones accurately though.

There has been relatively little innovation in headphones (and speakers) the last decade or so aside from DSP correction. The last really innovative (from an audio engineering point of view) headphone in my book is the HEDDphone with Air Motion Transfer drivers previously unseen outside some exotic speakers. But it’s $2000, weighs 700g and requires an amp to drive it.

I look forward to hearing the Apple headphones but am sceptical you can get as much of a boost with “computational audio” as you can with computational photography, compared to “dumb” headphones with similar drivers and tuning.

I think the spatial audio stuff is interesting and possibly better than previous attempts on headphones. I think well off people will buy these headphones for the convenience factor (works and sounds marginally better than the next best competitor), and Apple will probably release a less expensive version down the line.

There's lots of room to improve, for example, the quality of your voice as picked up by the mic, especially in windy environments. Speaking of that, walking outside on a windy day can be really intrusive with the XM3s because the ANC tries to 'cancel' the wind and you get weird sounds in your ears. Those seem like cases where Apple is well suited to make dramatic improvements via DSP. Tech like the noise canceling the HoloLens 2 applies to its mic (to cut out noise from around the speaker) seems well within their capability. I don't make much use of the XM3's "smart" features because they're pretty compromised. Their 'transparency' mode/partial noise canceling mode is really more intrusive than useful. It doesn't sound like I am partly-canceling background noise, it sounds like microphones are selectively filtering some of what they pick up into my music while I walk outside.

So I think there's definitely enough space for Apple to innovate on sound quality and other aspects of the wireless headset experience to justify the margin.

Edit: Also, multi-device pairing and handoff is super janky with the XM3s. Worth mentioning, I had the XM2s beforehand and the mic was literally unusable on conference calls no matter where I used it - people would complain and ask me what was wrong with my phone every time. Wireless headphones are not a solved problem.

XM3s hardware build quality is excellent. The biggest problem with XM3s is the crappy software. The iOS app that demands always on background location access. Although I’d learnt soon enough that it’s perfectly usable without the app.

This is where Apple really shines, in the integrated hardware and software experience. The multi device pairing support on Bose headsets is slightly better than on Sony headsets, although both done even come close to how well AirPods do it on Apple devices.

Which is why I'm sad that they'll become obsolete after a while. I'm sure they'd still make great studio headphones for listening at home in 15 years when the battery is long dead (if they worked passively).

I was told that the battery has to qualify for battery replacement on some devices. That's because they don't replace batteries on an iPad Pro - they always replace the entire device so unless you quality for the battery program, your only option is device replacement. Which they will do if I want but at a much greater cost. That's almost 1/2 the cost of what I originally paid for it.

I was told this directly by an Apple store employee this week. He said he literally can't select the battery replacement option unless he can prove that it is the battery and without the health report saying so, he doesn't know any way he could.

If that doesn't work out, easiest thing is probably to sell on Craigslist with some disclosure and buying a new one.

For the Airpods Max they currently list a price of 87€, but as far as I understand there's only one battery to swap. But 87€ every few years is still a high maintenance price, hoping they don't increase that price.

Also, Apple only offers service for a few years. I have a few bloated Macs that would need a new battery but Apple just doesn't service them anymore.

For many devices you can get replacement batteries from 3rd party sellers, but quality is hit or miss -- there's no guarantee the replacement battery is going to last (but in my experience Apple's replacement batteries are also unreliable sometimes).

Most of my Hifi gear is more than 15 years old. I doubt any of Apple's new audio products will last that long.

https://support.apple.com/airpods/repair/service#battery

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201624

I don’t know if these will find the market Apple is hoping for, but seriously what is the point of this comment? Just to be negative for negativity’s sake? I’m not trying to be confrontational or dickish—I just don’t get it. Every time Apple launches some new expensive product it’s the same old story, people saying it’s going to be crappy and anyway who would buy it at that ridiculous price? and then it turns out that it’s actually not crappy, and some people buy it and like it a lot. I don’t see why we should expect anything different here.

> there’s a cheaper product out there that’s inferior to what Apple claims of their new headphones

If your claim is that Apple made a product using expensive and tough materials, more expensive than, say, Sony's counterpart, and thus that is better, you may be half-right.

But if you claim that Apple made a product that sounds better than Bose or Sony's counterparts, and has better ANC, that is not verifiable, at least not until there are in-depth reviews out there confirming it.

What we know now is that Apple did not include support for high quality audio codecs. That itself is quite a red flag.

I would not argue with this and in fact I specifically addressed the does-the-market-actually-exist concern in my comment.

> But if you claim that Apple made a product that sounds better than Bose or Sony's counterparts, and has better ANC, that is not verifiable, at least not until there are in-depth reviews out there confirming it.

I don’t claim any such thing. The point of my comment is that the parent comment implied that there is no real difference, then said that even if there is a difference who cares because does anybody really need better sound anyway?

So my point is, what is the point of that comment? What is it bringing to this discussion, suggesting that Apple’s new headphones may be overpriced wrt. their sound quality, and if not then they’re overpriced anyway? Good sound is something some people care about and will pay for.

I'm going to take a guess and say that, given the facts, there are reasonable doubts about Apple's offering, compared to other products. Mainly two: noise cancelling is not on par with Bose and Sony, as stated by early reviewers, and the lack of high quality codecs.

Functionality-wise then, they may be overpriced.

And I would be the first to admit that I like the overall design. I'm an Apple user myself. But I'm skeptical that Apple has achieved the technical proficiency to make some reasonably good sounding, wireless, ANC cans, that compete with either Bose or Sony.

I see this more as a luxury product or a status symbol, like Bang & Olufsen.

> Good sound is something some people care about and will pay for.

The people willing to pay +$500 for a pair of headphones would be even more skeptical than me, I presume.

Since we’re talking about it now, though ... Apple has a decent record building products that meet a reasonable quality bar, even in markets they’re relatively new to. So I think there is a good chance these will end up being regarded as pretty good headphones, worth the asking price for a certain class of consumer. There is also some chance that they will be regarded as overpriced Beats by Dre trash, though I think that window is closing as more positive impressions come in. Outcomes in between those extremes are, obviously, also possible.

Apple’s hardware design and engineering are first rate, and the things they build with speakers in them don’t sound half bad. Personally, I’d be surprised if these weren’t competitive on features alone, and I’ve paid up to around $1000 for (wired) headphones.

So, without a doubt, people will pay for these. And I don’t know what sources that other guy has, but all the early impressions I’ve seen mention much better ANC than the competition

Anecdote: I drive a newer BMW 328i. I live in the northern US where it snows, and it's a rear-wheel drive car so it sat on the lot because no one around here wants to buy an expensive car they have to park half of the year. I bought it certified pre-owned for under $30k, but the MSRP brand new was more like $50k with the package/options mine has. And yet I get so many comments about how it's an impractical car (It's a four door with a full size trunk and gets 30mpg...) and I must be rich for driving a BMW. Oftentimes I get this comment from people who drive pickup trucks that cost $60k-$70k, but that's apparently okay because Ford isn't a "luxury brand".

I got my "luxury car" for less than the average purchase price of a new car in the US, and I still get comments about how it's so expensive and I must be rich and I've had family tell me not to drive it to family events because it makes people feel like I'm showing off. Because when they think BMW, they think "fuck that's an expensive car" but it's not. BMW makes expensive cars, yes, but mine was not. Heck I was looking at replacing my SUV and the base-model Chevy Blazer costs more than my BMW.

But also yes, I've frequented some Toyota forums for my SUV and I've seen a lot of comments when someone wants to discuss their Lexus because "it's just a Toyota that costs $10k more!".

Airpods don't have the best sound, several rival wireless earphones beat them to that.

> I doubt it's studio quality but I also doubt that of apple's offering (or the need for such quality).

Seems to me that the doubt is on charging $550 for mediocre sound or on whether better sound actually matters, depending on whether the sound turns out to be mediocre or not. That way we can be negative about Apple’s pricey new doodad regardless of whether it’s actually good or not—how convenient!

> Airpods don't have the best sound, several rival wireless earphones beat them to that.

I have not claimed otherwise and probably never will.

Why is being skeptical of a product announcement problematic? Is stone-faced indifference the only acceptable response? Can I also not speculate on a film's quality from its trailer?

Your comment was just pointless, unfair criticism. You start by pointing out that there exists a cheaper product that is broadly similar to Apple's new competitor. Then you claim that the latter probably won't exceed the quality of the cheaper product, and that even if it does, nobody could possibly want or need to pay the premium attached to that exceedance. So in the end you've put Apple in a box where their new product sucks no matter what, because it's not exactly the same as a product that already exists.

That's just obviously not valid, as previously noted—people pay a lot more than $550 for headphones that offer a lot less in the feature department than modern BT over-ear noise-cancellers. If you want to speculate on whether Apple will succeed in pushing the market higher in a way that makes sense for their business, that might actually be interesting, but you haven't offered anything nearly that substantive. It's just vague negativity of the kind that seeps out of the internet's pores whenever Apple releases something new, and it's usually wrong.

- Controls are annoying i.e. you have to swipe 20 times on the earcup and then waiting for a deafening beep to set the maximum volume.

- Loses track of current volume on different devices.

- Pairing with multiple devices rarely works.

- Audio quality is average.

The only reason people rave about is its noise cancelling.

IIRC you can swipe and keep holding to keep increasing/decreasing volume until you let go.

> Loses track of current volume on different devices.

That might be somewhat intentional, Android remembers volume per-device (or in case of wired headphones, one separate volume for all wired headphones). When you connect/plug in a device you plugged in before, the volume automatically changes. Sony could be offloading this logic to the device on purpose.

I have the B&O H9 3rd gen and I love them. I have no idea whether they stack up to what your write on the tech stack side of things, but the sound is phenomenal I think and that’s what matters to me. The mic is useless, but I don’t ever use them for anything but music anyhow.

IPhone was up against some groups with decades of making phones. Tesla is up against companies with literally a century of experience. SpaceX is up against companies that have made rockets for decades. Etc etc etc. I am surprised anyone on HN would be skeptical that a company with billions of dollars of cash at its disposal and world class engineering talent could do a passable job here all because an incumbent has experience. Also, are you suggesting that experience of one set of engineers with mastery of obsolete technologies 40 years ago is somehow a gate that a current company needs to pass through and excel at before they can compete with that company’s current engineers on current technology?

The iPhone wasn't the first phone, or even mobile phone. It was the first mass market SmartPhone.

Those products each have a differentiator. "Cool Wireless Headphones" isn't something new or novel.

That might well be, but the original AirPods were the first bluetooth headset I got that Actually Worked. BT earbuds quality was shockingly low before. It might well have been the classic Apple Timing phenomenon, when they release a product at the exact right time a technology is mature enough to work (e.g. large modern touchscreens etc), but they undeniably scored with what where, otherwise, pretty mediocre earbuds. They generally know what they are doing.

This said, $500+ for earbuds of any kind is too much, for my values, particularly this year when people and countries are literally starving. It's bad taste.

I don't even want to imagine what people will get with non-Apple audio sources.

But the AirPods Max may have a technical differentiator (not even just an Apple logo!) — AFAIK they’re the first wireless headphones without an on/off switch! (perhaps some of the earlier ones that don’t work once Apple stops replacing the batteries, as well?)

The iPhone was the first capacitive touch, finger friendly UI phone. The first OS release wasn't even that "smart" in that native apps could only be installed with a jailbreak.

Remember Blackberry?

Yes. Not a gate, but a bar they need to clear. Audio is not easy, and I disagree that most of the skills in question are obsolete. The electronics, sure. But the NC algorithms and driver are old yet still unsolved fields.

Of course, as you say, billions of dollars and poaching those employees will help them do it in less time.

> Tesla is up against companies with literally a century of experience.

And Tesla sucks at stuff that years of experience helps you get right. Like doors that close evenly, and windows seals that don't leak. The simple, little things.

Like most luxury goods, it's a status symbol, and thus the price justifies itself.

Premium products are more expensive than mass market products, typically with higher margins, but at the same time they tend to have greater value for the price than mass market products, provided the price isn't out of reach. Luxury products are much more exotic than premium, with much lower sales numbers, and their price is often almost entirely based on things like scarcity, manually intensive assembly, use of precious metals, etc.

A well-designed premium product should be as good or better than the equivalent mass market product in terms of getting what you pay for, but in the luxury world there's really no concept of value. It's expensive because it has to be and because the vendor wants it to be, but the value proposition is often nonexistent.

Rolls Royce is a luxury company. Rolex is a luxury company. Apple sells a product that's in the pocket of every other snot-nosed preteen.

However, they charge a larger-than-normal markup, so people feel like it's luxurious.

EDIT: There seems to be some misunderstandings of what a "luxury" good is. Something isn't luxurious just because it is subjectively a little bit better than the competition. Bosch makes the best dishwashers but they are not a luxury brand. Similarly, the Golf GTI is an absolutely incredible $30K car, but that does not make it luxurious.

A Rolls Royce is a luxury car because it is full of extravagance and opulence. There is absolutely no concern with keeping costs down, and there is no expense spared to make the car as comfortable and luxurious as possible. It also fits the economic definition[1] where spending on luxury cars increases with income. The richer you are, the more money you spend on luxury cars. This isn't true of Apple products because it is a mass produced, mass market good. A billionaire can't buy a better iPhone. That's the opposite of what it means to be a luxury, exclusive brand.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxury_goods

This is fundamentally true of all luxury goods, so this distinction is not meaningful. Which is why it is commonly used as a marketing tool, you can create this distinction at any level you want, to make your customers feel exclusive.

Sure, apple plays at the lower-price-broader-market end of this than say, McClaren automotive, but it's the same game.

Speaking personally, I have zero interest in brand except as a marque of quality. But for those who are optimizing for quality over price, Apple is a choice that rarely leads to disappointment.

That's a different proposition to most luxury brands, which primarily target aspiration. A Louis Vuitton handbag may not be a higher-quality handbag, but as I understand it, their consumers are buying it for the logo more than the craftsmanship.

> However, they charge a larger-than-normal markup, so people feel like it's luxurious.

This doesn't seem to me to be a complicated "dichotomy" to square/understand where with phone hardware, at least, any markup is sometimes "larger-than-normal". It's very easy to be a phone "luxury" brand when so many phones are sold with thin to no margins. Apple certainly props up their "luxury status"/"luxury image" with much higher margin products in the margins outside of phones, but it is easy to see why the bar for "luxury phone" itself is so low that it can also be a mass produced/mass consumed object.

Of course, unlike Apple, Rolex makes products that last decades. So older, less collectible models become affordable to people. But the fact that the "mass market" is willing to fight over the heavily used, least desirable of all Rolexes proves its exclusivity and "luxury".

Seriously? This comes up within the first few comments in just about every single internet thread about Apple I've ever seen.

The people Apple will make their money on selling $550 headphones to probably make a lot less per year than the readers of this comment do.

The exact same people that buy Beats headphones instead of AKG or Beyerdynamic prior to Beats getting acquired by Apple. In other words people who buy them as a status symbol, not for their function, because they themselves are not informed consumers.

For the $500 a pair of Airpods Max is going to cost, though, you can get some /serious/ headphones, that gets you straight out of dynamic transducers and into the entry grade planar magnetic and even entry electrostatic earphones.

There's simply no reason to spend that much on Airpods Max compared to the available market if you actually care about performance and sound quality.

Also they do seem to care more about nice materials and Style than other brands, which is reflected in their commercials as well.

If you happen to have a link handy, I'd love to see what you're referring to specifically?

There are a many technologies present in products like this that a company that is purely "focused on producing the best headphones" wouldn't normally concern themselves with such as a DAC, amp, DSP, microphone & wireless protocols. When these components are tightly designed together, Apple can disrupt much in the same way they're doing with their M1 line.

This luxury product looks cool. Paying a lot extra for that is not new. The price premium over competing products is just not that much for many Apple customers.

In case the noise cancellation when on a plane turns out to be head and shoulders above Bose and Sony...that extra 200 USD now does not seem so bad.

I can't imagine someone saying a wireless headphone with noise cancelling is "studio" anything. From the delay to the processing to everything, if I want to use a headphone for studio work, I'll want the flattest wiredest analogest of headphones because I don't want them to changing whatever comes in at all.

I think Apple may also be finding out the same thing. These are clearly awesome headphones, but it remains to be seen for whom these are not just cool, but indispensable.

Finding that out will help them continue to target the right customers when (I assume) they lower the price in the future and improve its capabilities.

(It's too easy to take apart and contradict and argue someone's specific personal circumstances as invalid/wrong/unjustified. That would only worsen my life, as I'm living those circumstances, so with apologies I'm not going to share the specifics of my segment for inspection and debate.)

1. Apple's Bluetooth hardware implementation has been top tier for me in multi-device use, in a mixed Apple and non-Apple environment, with predictable steps to resolve any issue I encounter, across the Beats and Apple headphones products that I've used since 2017.

2. Apple's minimal-choice approach to their headphones provides the bare minimum necessary to operate them in on-device functionality, which removes all opportunities for hidden settings, unusual interactions, and other "am I at fault?" interactions with my devices.

3. Apple's noise canceling implementation is strong enough to cancel out general background noise without preventing me from hearing someone speak to me, and weak enough that I can forget that I'm wearing headphones with noise canceling enabled, and doesn't induce nausea in me the way that new (but not old) Bose QuietComfort headphones do.

4. Apple's frequency prioritization for their products is more natural and less modified and bass-heavy to my ears than Beats and other popular products in the market, which aligns with the customizations I requested for my modified DT770s when having them recabled to balanced XLR.

5. Apple's surround virtualization algorithm has been better to my perception than that of Astro A50 headphones (the previous contender for best in class), while causing neither confusion nor nausea when used for extended periods of time.

EDIT: And to save time on replies, here's a per-item FAQ for each of the above, so that I might save folks some time on back-and-forth.

1. Yes, I have experienced significant Bluetooth frustration issues when combined with Apple beta operating system releases, and at one point was able to diagnose a 5GHz wireless interference issue that was fixed before general release to the public. Yes, the original AirPods v1 had sporadic issues, that were resolved by firmware and hardware updates. No, those issues didn't cause me to give up on Apple. Yes, I'm aware that other people have issues with Apple products. No, I'm generally able to resolve any issues within a few seconds. Yes, once in a while the audio blips out, as do my non-Bluetooth wireless headphones as well.

2. Yes, I know they don't use aptX with Android. No, I don't care what codec they use to communicate with my devices, even the Android devices. Yes, I'm aware that aptX is higher quality than Bluetooth AAC. Yes, I have a 192/32-int lossless DAC stack for my wired headphones. No, I'm not trying to simultaneously multi-pair my wireless headphones, or share them between multiple iCloud users or etc. Yes, I know that competing headphones can do all sorts of complicated things that I don't desire them to do for me. No, I don't want to be able to modify any settings on my wireless headphones.

3. Yes, I can still hear people talking. No, I don't get perfect silence on airplanes, even with -27dB custom-molded in-ear earplugs underneath them. Yes, the first time I tested the new QCs, I nearly barfed. No, I don't have that problem with the old QC-15s. Yes, there are settings for the 'level' of noise canceling on the new QCs, see also #2.

4. Yes, I know that Apple owns Beats. Actually, I have 'Beats Pro Studio Wireless 3', the one entry in the lineup that doesn't amplify bass like the rest of the Beats line is prone to doing. Yes, I prefer balanced sound in my listening experiences, both with wireless and wired headphones and in my car.

5. Yes, I know that the Astro A50 when combined with a modern Xbox and Dolby Atmos for Headphones no longer uses the A50 algorithm but instead uses a version of Atmos specifically tuned for my exact headphones. Yes, I know that Apple is using Atmos somehow as part of their virtualization experience. No, I don't expect Atmos to upgrade the notes in my music to sound higher fidelity. No, I don't expect that I'll get the full Spatial Audio experience on most of my devices. Yes, I know that it's possible to tune virtualization algorithms to create a better headspace, see also #2.

Interesting mention on the Astro A50s, I used to have a pair and I thought they were brilliantly comfortable and sounded superb in a gaming context. Unfortunately I destroyed the microphone.

The most likely (90%) cause of having to give up and return AirPods Pro Max will be if they can't fit over my annoying skull. Second most likely (10%), they end up weighing too much. We'll see!

Where are you seeing reviews that show that they're not of this quality?